Mind-mindedness is associated with positive developmental outcomes. However, much of the literature uses mostly White, middle to high socioeconomic status (SES) samples despite evidence that the benefits of mind-mindedness may vary based on degree of social risk. Additionally, few studies have examined relations between mind-mindedness and…

The present study examined children's co-construction of shared meanings and internal state language during play with their sibling and friend from early to middle childhood. Sixty-five 4-year-old children (T1) and 46 7-year-old children (T2) were observed in the home during two free play sessions with a sibling and with a friend at both time…

According to Lev S. Vygotsky (1896-1934), the highest levels of abstract thinking and self-regulation in preschool development are established in "pretend play using object substitutions." An extensive research literature supports Vygotsky's empirical model of the internalization of self-guiding speech (social speech > private speech…

Helping children find personal meaning and improve proficiency while submersed in the value of sport is critical to emotional/social development. Self-talk (ST) is a cognitive learning strategy that we can harness to encourage and prepare children to solve a problem or address an imminent situation, while acknowledging that they mature at…

The majority of recent studies conclude that children's private speech development (private speech internalisation) is important for mathematical development and subject to disabling. The main concern of the present study was whether or not the two phonological memory factors evaluated in the study (i.e. the results of children's digit span…

This theoretical paper discusses the role of pretend play and games with rules in fostering children's self-regulation. It proposes several pathways through which play facilitates self-regulation processes. First, in play, children learn to inhibit their impulsive behaviour and follow rules which transform their behaviour from impulsive and…

The authors discuss the association between make-believe play and the development of executive-function (EF) skills in young children. Some forty years ago, Lev S. Vygotsky first proposed that make-believe fosters the development of symbolic thought and self-regulation. Since then, a small body of research has produced evidence of an association…

The present study aimed to extend understanding of preschoolers' early spelling using the Vygotskian ("Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes," Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1978) paradigm of child development. We assessed the contribution of maternal spelling support in predicting children's word…

The majority of recent studies conclude that children's private speech development (private speech internalization) is related to and important for mathematical development and disabilities. It is far from clear, however, whether private speech internalization itself plays any causal role in the development of mathematical competence. The main…

Both Vygotsky, a psychologist, and Halliday, a social linguist, argue for the central role of language in human development. Language is the principal mode of meaning making; it mediates both the communication through which thinking with others is made possible and also the inner speech through which individual thinking is brought under conscious…

The ideas of Vygotsky [Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). "Thinking and speech." In "The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky," (Vol. 1). New York: Plenum. (Original work published 1934.)] have been increasingly influential in accounting for social-environmental influences on the development of social understanding (SU). In the first part of this article, I…

Results of an experiment with children ages 3-11 years performing serial recall tasks suggest that it is not until about age 5 years that children's overt speech reaches a functional stage that would justify internalization. (Author/WY)

This article considers the implications of two central constructs of sociocultural theory (SCT) for second language (L2) development: mediation and internalization. It first discusses Vygotsky's general theoretical claim that human mental activity arises as a consequence of the functional system formed by our biologically specified mental…

This review of the literature on self-speech, a subset of a communicative speech (speech not intended for nor effectively adapted for communication with others), focuses on the concept of self-control through language. The theories of six major researchers in the area of self-speech--J. Piaget, L. Vygotsky, A. Luria, H. Reese, J. Flavell, and L.…